by Dudley Pope
‘Yes, sir, he is on leave at the moment: he and his wife had dinner with us a few days ago.’
‘Drink!’ the First Lord suddenly exclaimed crossly. ‘Doesn’t he drink heavily?’
Knowing that next to officers who married too young, the First Lord most abhorred heavy drinkers, Ramage said hurriedly: ‘He did, sir, before he first joined me.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Well, Southwick – that’s the Master I requested – and I managed to cure him. He hasn’t touched a drop for more than two years now.’
‘By Jove!’ the Admiral said. ‘Curing the sawbones, eh? Now look’ee, I’ve just remembered a chaplain…’
He paused for a moment, watching Ramage closely. The captain of a frigate was not required to carry a chaplain unless one applied to join his ship. There were good and bad chaplains. A 32-gun frigate, with a ship’s company of only 215 men, rarely provided a chaplain with enough work, even if he gave lessons to the midshipmen, so the captain and ship’s company tended to be at the mercy of the man’s quirks, foibles and prejudices. A High Church chaplain soon upset all the Low Church men on board; a Low Church chaplain inevitably ran foul of the Catholics. Ramage had long ago decided that the men’s spiritual needs were quite adequately catered for every Sunday morning by a short service conducted by the captain. Some rousing hymns did the men the world of good, and were the captain’s best weathercock as far as their spirits were concerned. A contented ship’s company sang lustily; a disgruntled crew did little more than mumble, with the fiddler’s scraping nearly drowning their voices.
Lord St Vincent gave a wintry smile before Ramage answered, and said: ‘Very well, I’ll place him somewhere else. Currying favour with senior officers is not one of your faults, my lad; most young officers just told they’re being made post and given a frigate would willingly ship ten chaplains if they thought it’d please the First Lord.’
‘I was thinking of my ship’s company,’ Ramage said, then realized that he could hardly have made a more tactless remark added: ‘I mean, sir, that–’
‘I know what you mean,’ the Admiral said, obviously enjoying Ramage’s embarrassment. ‘I was a young frigate captain once. I doubt there are any tricks you’ll contrive that I don’t know about.’
He had gone on to tell Ramage that the Juno frigate was lying at Portsmouth; that Ramage was replacing a captain removed from his command by sentence of court martial; that the ship’s company wanted licking into shape, and that all the officers and midshipmen were being transferred to give the new captain a chance.
‘Discipline had become too slack,’ the Admiral growled. ‘I can’t give you more than a few days to get a round turn on them because Admiral Davis needs a frigate in Barbados to carry out the instructions you will be taking with you.’
His Lordship was notoriously a man who disliked questions, but Ramage could not resist asking, ‘May I take it, sir, that the instructions refer to some – er, some mission for me?’
‘That depends on Admiral Davis. The Juno is to join his command. My instructions for him concern a particular service, but whether he chooses you or one of his own captains is up to him.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Nothing to stop him sending off one of his own frigates, and using you and the Juno for convoy work. Plenty of that, you know; very essential work, too, up and down the Windward and Leeward Islands. Just the thing for keeping a ship’s company taut: plenty of sail handling, anchoring and weighing…’
His Lordship had finally sat back in his chair and said: ‘Your father keeps well?’
When Ramage said that he did, the First Lord commented: ‘He will be pleased at your promotion. It hasn’t gone unnoticed here that the Earl had never tried to use his interest on your behalf: he left you to earn your promotion. Now you’ve got it, take care you always deserve it.’ His face became stern again. ‘I’ve said this to you before, and so has my predecessor in this office, and I say it again: you’ve done some good work and you’ve been devilish lucky. But if you are going to rise in the Service, you’ve got to stop disobeying or stretching orders. You got away with it half a dozen times or more as a lieutenant, but now you have been made post all that’s changed. You are supposed to be a mature and responsible man, and that’s how you’ll be held to account. Discipline, Ramage; that’s what holds this great Service together.’
He had stood up and held out his hand. As Ramage shook it the old man said: ‘I’m no believer in rapid promotion. At each step fewer men are chosen, and it is part of my job to make sure they are the best. This is going to be a long war, and if we are to win it, our captains must be the finest in the world.’
Ramage had left the Admiralty walking a foot above the ground. A post captain with a frigate! But he had not crossed the cobbled courtyard to pass through the gateway into Whitehall before the exhilaration subsided, and he pictured himself doing convoy work in the Caribbean, work only slightly less dreary than shepherding Atlantic convoys.
He picked up the pen and for the next hour wrote rapidly, rarely crossing out. Then he put the pen down and read through the Orders from start to finish. They were longer than he intended, but luckily they were still shorter – crisper, anyway – than many he had read in the past. He would let Southwick go through them before the clerk made a fair copy.
That put an end to paperwork for a day or two, though there would be a mountain waiting for him on board the Juno. The stores and equipment had to be signed for, certifying that they were on board, quite apart from the papers needed for getting to sea. The whole damned Navy floated on a sea of paper…
He went over and picked up the case of pistols. They were not as ornate as Gianna would have liked – though only because she wanted a present that was beautiful as well as useful – but they were splendid examples of the gun-maker’s art. Opening the lid he looked at the two guns nestling in their recesses. They were well made, and so were the accessories: the shot mould was sturdy, not something that would rust quickly after constant heating; the flasks were shaped so that they fitted the hand; the lever which was pressed down to let out the right measure of powder fitted the thumb perfectly. He closed the box. He ought to start checking through his clothes; Hanson would have to pack the trunk tomorrow, and he had only the morning to buy anything he lacked.
A quiet knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and Gianna came into the room, pausing for a moment in shadow. In that moment Ramage went a thousand miles in space and back three years to the time he had first seen her: she had suddenly flung back the hood of her cloak and stood there watching him: candlelight had glinted in hair shining blue-black like a raven’s feathers and shown a beautiful face with high cheekbones and large, widely spaced eyes, a mouth a little too wide and with lips too full and warm for classical perfection. A face that could be coldly imperious or warm and generous. He had thought of Ghiberti’s carving of The Creation of Eve on the east doors of the Baptistry in Florence, the naked Goddess with the bold slim body and small jutting breasts… But the Eve standing at the door was holding an envelope and even before she spoke he recognized the heavy Admiralty seal on the back.
‘A messenger just brought this: your father signed the receipt,’ she said without expression. ‘I hope it doesn’t…’ she did not finish the sentence but Ramage knew what she meant. The letter might say he was not to have the Juno after all. Gianna would be sorry for his sake yet delighted if he went on half-pay for three months or so – she had seen little enough of him since she had reached England from the Mediterranean.
He broke the seal and opened the letter. It was from the Board Secretary, Evan Nepean, and began with the usual time-honoured phrase, ‘I am directed by My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty…’ He read through to the end. It took five lines of flowing prose to say that he was to leave for Portsmouth in time to arrive on board the Juno by noon on Wednesday, take command according to the commission already in his possession, and be under way by Friday. Why the Admiralty should suddenly decide to or
der him on board two days earlier Ramage was not told.
‘Stop making faces and shrugging your shoulders,’ Gianna said impatiently. ‘What does it say?’
‘I must leave for Portsmouth first thing tomorrow–’
‘But that is two days early!’
‘Something must have happened.’
‘Nonsense, it is just that some silly man in the Admiralty is impatient and thoughtless – why, you’ve had only a few days’ rest after carrying out those last terrible orders. Lord St Vincent should be–’
‘Cara mia,’ he interrupted, ‘there are hundreds of captains but only a few frigates. I am very lucky.’
He heard his father’s heavy tread outside and the Admiral, a worried look on his face, came into the room. ‘They haven’t changed their minds, have they?’
Ramage gave him the letter and when he read it the Admiral shook his head. ‘You have trouble down there, my boy. I don’t think Admiral Mann was exaggerating when he told me that your predecessor’s court martial was a messy affair and that most of the officers should have been tried at the same time. The fellow was only in command six months, but in that time he let the ship’s company go to pieces. A bad business. And you have to be under way by Friday with new officers…’
Ramage nodded and Gianna knew that she was temporarily forgotten: already Nicholas’ face was animated as he called for Hanson to help him pack. Father and son were alike. Looking at the Admiral, she could see how Nicholas would be in thirty years’ time – if he wasn’t killed in this damnable war. Both were slim – the Admiral was putting on a little weight but would never let himself get plump – and it made them seem taller than they were. Both had the deep-set brown eyes and aquiline nose of the Ramages – most of the men in those family portraits at St Kew stared down at her out of their frames with those same eyes and made her shiver: those forebears were all dead, and yet the painters somehow kept them alive, the great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers…
Nicholas was nervous; she saw he was rubbing the upper of the two scars over his right eyebrow. Each was the result of a wound; on two separate occasions he had been lucky not to have his skull split open by the enemy. For a moment, before she could crowd the picture from her imagination, she saw him lying in a pool of blood on the deck of a ship, dying from a third wound. She crossed herself: she had this terrible fear that if the picture kept appearing, then it would happen.
The Admiral took her arm and led her from the room. As they walked down the stairs he said gently: ‘It is always worse for the people staying behind. Watching Nicholas beginning to pack makes me realize what my wife must have gone through so many times…’
‘But it is so unfair,’ she burst out. ‘They give him such fantastic orders. That last affair – fancy sending him to France! How he escaped the guillotine I shall never know, and it goes on and on and on. This war will never end!’
‘Nicholas chose the Navy, my dear,’ the Admiral said quietly as they reached the drawing-room and his wife stood up and came towards Gianna, her arms outstretched. ‘Nicholas now has to leave first thing tomorrow,’ he explained. ‘Naturally Gianna is upset.’
The older woman led Gianna to a chair. ‘For years I was always saying goodbye to my husband, and now it is to my son,’ she said simply. ‘I find it helps to think that the sooner I say goodbye, the sooner I welcome him back!’
‘But every time it is a miracle he comes back,’ Gianna sobbed. ‘Every time he is a little changed, a little more preoccupato!’
‘That is not the Navy’s fault,’ the Admiral said crisply. ‘Our experiences change us little by little. That’s maturing.’
His wife glanced at him. ‘I think you should go up and help Nicholas pack his trunk: he has not much time.’
Gianna jumped up, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘No, no, I will. I am sorry, it is just – well, the West Indies are so far away.’
The Admiral held her shoulders for a minute and said with deliberate harshness: ‘Yes, nearly a quarter of the way round the world from London. But remember, the French coast is only twenty-one miles from Dover, yet that’s where Bonaparte’s men caught him and wanted to cut off his head…’
CHAPTER TWO
Vauxhall turnpike, Putney Heath, Esher…on to Godalming, Liphook, Petersfield and Horndean… Change horses here, change horses there, hurried meals, and then the Porstdown Hills, Cosham and finally, after more than seventy miles, Portsmouth. His new breeches were uncomfortably tight and his coat stiff; his shoes were hard and his feet throbbed. As a younker, posting to Portsmouth to join your ship had always been exciting; as a lieutenant it eventually became tedious; as a captain, Ramage found it seventy miles of unrelieved irritation. The ’chaise jogged and rattled too much for him to be able to write down the things he suddenly remembered, and each thought was crowded out by a succession of others before the ’chaise reached the next stop to change horses. An alteration to his Captain’s Orders, something more to insert, an important note for the Surgeon, several items for the Master – all forgotten between changes of horses. His memory was like a bucket without a bottom.
He reported to the crusty old Port Admiral at his office in Portsmouth Dockyard, found that the Juno was anchored off the Spit Sand outside the harbour, and was told that the new Master had gone on board but that the new lieutenants had not yet reported. From the Port Admiral’s attitude it was obvious that the Juno was not his favourite frigate, and his parting words were: ‘We have so many court martials at the moment that captains don’t have time to get their ships ready, so keep your troubles to yourself.’
It was a discouraging hint about the state of the discipline in the Juno, and an ambiguous warning that the Port Admiral would not welcome Ramage bringing any delinquent officer or man to trial. He was to get the ship ready ‘and sail in execution of your orders’.
Early on Wednesday morning the little cutter carrying him from the Point steps out to the Juno at Spithead was close-reaching in a brisk south-westerly breeze, the boatman moving the tiller from time to time to ease her over the occasional large wave. Ramage’s trunk was wrapped in a tarpaulin to keep off the spray, and he was thankful to be wearing his boat cloak.
The burly boatman and a lad who was probably his son had glanced at each other when he hired them and named the Juno. The shortcomings of her previous captain were obviously common knowledge. A spot of bother in one of the dozen of ships of war anchored at Spithead was always interesting gossip for the seafaring folk living at Portsmouth or Gosport.
‘Took the new Master out last night, sir,’ the boatman said conversationally, raising his voice against the wind and the slop of the waves.
Ramage nodded. ‘There’ll be more business for you today or tomorrow, if you keep a sharp lookout at the Steps; four lieutenants, some midshipmen, a surgeon, Marine officers…’
The boatman grinned his gratitude: knowledge that particular officers were expected helped with the tips: it flattered a young lieutenant to tell him that the captain had mentioned he was due. You could usually tell a lieutenant’s seniority – the more junior the larger the tip.
He watched the young captain out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he dare ask a question or two, but decided against it: those eyes looked as though they could give you a very cold stare. He contented himself with a grunt to the boy that he wanted the mainsheet easing as they bore away for the last few hundred yards to round another anchored ship before luffing up alongside the Juno.
Ramage had already begun his survey of the Juno. Her yards were not square and there were two boats lying alongside at the larboard gangway, instead of being streamed astern. The paintwork looked in fair condition though, which was fortunate since there was no time to do anything about it before sailing. The black hull and sweeping sheer were shown off nicely by the pale yellow strake just below the gunports. She was one of Sir John Willams’ designs, and he had a reputation for building fast ships, though Ramage had heard some captains grum
ble that they were rather tender and apt to heel a lot in a strong breeze, making it hard work for the gunners.
As the cutter drew nearer he saw some marks on the black hull forward, which showed that the ship’s company threw buckets of dirty water and rubbish over the side instead of going straight forward to the head and lowering the buckets well down before starting them. Within the hour he would have men over the side with scrubbing brushes.
The more he saw as the cutter closed the distance, the more furious he became; the ship was thoroughly neglected. Seamen were lounging about the deck as though they were on the Gosport Ferry, and he could see the hats of a group of officers gossiping on the quarterdeck. They are in for a shock in a minute, he thought grimly, as soon as the sentry challenges, in fact.
‘What ship?’ came a casual shout, and Ramage nodded to the boatman to make the time-honoured answer that would tell everyone on board the Juno frigate that her new captain was in the boat. ‘Juno!’ the boatman bellowed, as he glanced at Ramage and risked a wink.
For years the old boatman had been taking officers out to every kind of ship of war, from tiny sloops to 98-gun ships of the line. Better than many junior officers he could glance at masts, yards, sails and hull and tell a great deal about a ship’s officers. He had looked at the Juno and had seen her through Ramage’s eyes. And he had seen the taut look on the captain’s face.
Heads were now appearing over the Juno’s bulwarks and fifty men’s faces from one end of the ship to the other were staring down at the little cutter. An officer appeared at the entry port, gesturing to someone behind him. A bos’n’s call shrilled faintly, and then Ramage could not watch any more. The little cutter was coming alongside and he had to keep an eye open to make sure that the flapping mainsail did not scoop off his hat as it was lowered, or that a dollop of sea thrown up between the two hulls did not hit him in the face and make a farce of his arrival on board his new command.